Global slowdown could go into 2016

That threat, flagged by analysts who generally have been too optimistic about prospects for recovery since the global financial crisis, comes despite ultra-easy monetary policy from most major central banks for the last half decade.

Following the US Federal Reserve’s decision last month against raising interest rates from zero, citing worries about the global economy, and particularly China, a historic era of stimulative monetary policy is set to last even longer.

The poll also suggests that those few economies which have perked up this year, particularly the United States, the eurozone and Britain, are increasingly exposed to waning global demand and may not be able to maintain their momentum.

The concern coincides with a growing sense of unease in financial markets, where market experts have also taken a knife to all sorts of asset forecasts, from global stock indexes to sovereign bond yields.

So while 2016 is still forecast to be better than this year for most major economies, economists have trimmed their forecasts.